No Downsides. Only Upsides.
Creatine, a bodily substance, is extremely popular in the fitness industry– but also a lot of other sports. I have been using creatine myself during multiple periods in the last few years, and in this blog post, I want to discuss what creatine is and the functioning of creatine.
The substance creatine has been wildly researched during the last decades by a lot of analysts. Is creatine that promising? Or is it just a commercial item? Almost all papers result in positively answering the first question. Creatine is really that good.
What is creatine?
So what is creatine exactly? Creatine is a substance that is already in your body, but for most at a lower than optimum level for sports. However, studies have shown that by taking creatine supplements, aka increasing your creatine level in your body, can lead to improved results in sports and lifting. When I talk about creatine in this post as a supplement, I talk about the substance ‘creatine monohydrate’. This is the purest form of creatine on the market. There are other kinds of creatine (liquid for example), but there have not been a lot of papers about them, so I do not take these into account.
– What foods contain creatine?
Mostly red meat and fish contain (high) levels of creatine. So if you already eat this a lot every week, chances are higher than for others that additional creatine supplements might have a definite lower effect on you than for others who do not eat this kind of meat a lot. According to some papers, creatine seems to have a positive impact on four out of five people. This might have to do with the fact that some people already have a high level of creatine in their body, as explained above, due to dietary reasons.
I did not eat a lot of red meat or fish, still. So I had my hopes high when I started taking creatine as a supplement.
– What does creatine do?
In short: Creatine tends to improve energy levels during high-intensity training/lifting. This, in turn, leads to lifting higher weights or having a higher amount of repetitions, leading to more muscle gains.
– Side effect
Creatine has a side effect. Creatine is a hydrophilic particle, which means it absorbs water. If you increase the level of those molecules in your body, you will thus attract/absorb more water in your body. Especially when you are starting with taking creatine, you will notice that you gain a lot of weight (It’s not all lean muscle, alas!).
How does creatine work?
In my opinion, it is always important you know what you buy. So before you purchase creatine, let’s see what it does first. As said before, creatine can increase the energy levels in your muscles, but how exactly?
During high-intensity training your quickest way to give your muscles energy is via the breaking down of ATP (adenine triphosphate) into ADP (adenine diphosphate):
(1) ATP <–> ADP + P + Energy
You only have limited ATP, which means limited energy. However, your body can ‘recharge’ ATP. The quickest way to do so is by using CP (creatine phosphate) to transform ADP into ATP again:
(2) ADP + CP <–> ATP + Creatine
The level of CP can be held on a good level by using Creatine and Phosphate and turn it into CP again:
(3) Creatine + P <–> CP
To summarize the above functions. You can see that in (1) the main energy creation is done. In (2) the levels of ATP are maintained and (3) supports (2) in making sure there are enough CP and vice versa for (2) making sure that (3) has enough Creatine.
The above is the extended version of how creatine makes sure your fitness results will increase once you start taking creatine supplements.
How much should I take?
The basic approach to creatine is a scoop of 5g per day in the long-term. However, since your body now has a below optimum level of creatine, you need to increase that level of creatine first. You can start with creatine in two ways:
– Slow approach
Just take the recommended amount of 5g per day for 2/4 weeks. By taking the advised rate of creatine per day, you will slowly increase your creatine levels in your muscles. No change afterward, stick with the 5g a day.
– Fast method
Start with a rapid build-up: 5 days of 5x scoops of 5 grams. After about five days, you will have reached your optimum level of creatine. Later, go to the steady 1x 5 g a day. This method gives you the advantage of a faster build-up time, but it costs significantly more creatine, and thus money.
It is good to stop using creatine once in a while. Some articles suggest doing so once every six weeks. This is recommended since, when you supplement your body with these amounts of creatine, your body may get used to that and reduce its own creatine production. To counter this, you can stop once in a while to make sure your body stays functioning the way it does without creatine supplements.
Personal experience
For me, taking in creatine turned out to be amazing. I chose a slow approach to taking in creatine. Daily, I took 5 grams of creatine. So after two to four weeks, you should have your creatine levels on an optimal basis. In the first four weeks, I was taking creatine, my results were off the charts, and I gained a lot of muscle mass (and moist as well, up to 4kg to my estimate). At the time of writing this post, I stopped taking creatine for almost four weeks (also due to holidays), and I will start again after that period.
Please bear in mind!
First of all, creatine is no magic powder. Yes, creatine seems to do only positive things for your body, but it only works if you get everything else right as well.
Next, to that, almost all research papers show that taking more than 5g of creatine a day does not add any improved fitness results. 5g a day is the holy number here. You can increase your daily intake, but your body will not use it, and it will lead you to pay more for your supplements.
Maybe the most important note is that the start to every success story in fitness does not begin with taking creatine. Success is determined by hard work and determination and consistency. If you’re not putting enough effort in your food – and most importantly, your daily need protein intake – nor your training schedule, creatine is not going to help. However, if you do those things right, creatine will probably be you of excellent service! Please bear that in mind before you blindly buy creatine.
Used Literature (In Dutch, sorry!)
https://www.eigenkracht.nl/supplementen/specifieke-supplementen/creatine
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